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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28166787">You Shall Never Have to Forgive Me Again</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maddoxis/pseuds/Maddoxis'>Maddoxis</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Longing, Love, Other, Regret, Something More, Spoilers for ending: Arasaka, The saddest most heart wrenching ending imo :'), Whump</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:02:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,959</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28166787</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maddoxis/pseuds/Maddoxis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Do you think it's painful? Having your soul torn from you?<br/>- Short story set during a specific ending, the Arasaka ending.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Johnny Silverhand/V</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Lost it to Trying by Son Lux</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>My first night in this place, I was disgusted at how hollow I felt, how empty I was. Like a cold wind was blowing straight through my chest. But hearing that asshole's voice, being knocked out of my sleep by his rough calls....<br/>
God dammit it filled me with so much relief.<br/>
I couldn't believe he was still here, so even though I was shaking....I got up, my legs urgin' me to run towards his voice....but the door to him opened up into nothingness, empty space except for the cold indifference of distant stars. </p><p>Is that what I did to him? Is this what I did to you Johnny? I called and you answered but when you finally opened the door...vacuum...empty space...indifference.</p><p>I wonder, do you really hate me now? Did I disappoint you? Are you ashamed of me..?</p><p>I hate having these questions. I hate thinking about you and wondering and not just knowing. </p><p>Standing in the doorway I feel like I'm being pulled forward, I don't fight it. I don't fight.... I feel myself tip and fall into the vastness of space. I don't try to catch myself and I almost feel happy. Even if you won't be there...it's like I'd be alone with you still....</p><p>But the artificial light comes and blinds me as I wake up, I almost forget I'm stuck in this space station, I almost believe it's the sun burning my skin. But it's just cold air, bright lights, and absence. The only thing still there are the stars, the ones caught in the frame of my window stare at me spitefully, I sense their distaste. Are they your hundred eyes, Johnny? You did always joke about being my guardian angel. </p><p>I see the same doctor everyday, and she asks me the same questions everyday.<br/>
'Answer with the first thing that comes to your head', she says. 'Don't overthink it', she tells me. And I do as she says, I answer without thinking....almost without meaning to. And it's always your name. </p><p>Life</p><p>Johnny. </p><p>Future </p><p>Johnny.</p><p>Myself</p><p>Johnny.</p><p>I answer as if you'll hear me, like you're the one I'm talkin' to. I need you Johnny. I hardly ever speak...what's the point when I'm mostly alone...but when I have to say something it's only ever your name...you hear me, don't you? </p><p>Then I just sleep...for hours, maybe days. </p><p>The doctors won't tell me but I think something's wrong...I'm not whole again, I think I'm more broken now than I was before. I'm shattered now but without you to fill in the blanks...I feel like I'm going insane. Why the fuck aren't I whole again? Without you why do I feel stretched and pulled to infinity, like I lost a buffer and now everything is too much. Heat on already burned skin. You're not me, but then why is there a piece of me missing? </p><p>You're finally gone and yet everything is you, everything screams your name louder. </p><p>Johnny...they leave the news on while I'm in here. The world they show on the screen is not one I recognize. It's horrifying...so horrifying that my first night here I spent it mostly crying...and it was all because of what I'd seen on tv....<br/>
I saw Saburo Arasaka...his voice coming out of his son's body, wearing it like a jumpsuit of skin and blood. His own son, Johnny...his son's very soul squelched within his body, to the point he didn't exist anymore.<br/>
Saburo pushed his son's soul out of its body to make room for himself.<br/>
His son was just- meat, meat to inhabit. He was no longer a life, no hopes, no dreams, nothing.<br/>
I wanted to throw up...it scared me so badly, to see it in full effect. Is that really what was going to happen to us? I find it hard to believe still....<br/>
For some reason, while I watched I imagined a demon slipping into a person's body without them even knowing, like in those ancient movies.... One day you make the mistake of speaking a forbiddden name, or disturbing the dead, and just...unwittingly enter an unwinnable battle between good and evil. The people in those movies never stand a chance against the devil's agenda. Their bodies become forfeit, free rein in the war between good and evil. One wrong move and suddenly...someone else's eyes are looking through your skull.<br/>
Not sure where that human soul goes when they're being piloted by a demon, but either way you're not there anymore. That's what Yorinobu's body looks like now. It's weird but it looks like if you were to peer into his eyes, you'd see the demon inside him. As if there were a room inside him where Saburo now lives. Not a soul in it's skin, but an intruder settling into the dark unchecked corners of an abandoned home.<br/>
Is that what we were? Why does it not feel that way? I mean- why did it not feel that way.<br/>
That's what possession is, right? If God and Satan weren't real before, they are now. And we created them. I- I created.... I'm so sorry Johnny. The chip is gone and yet you haunt me worse than ever before. Like a ticking clock beneath blood stained floorboards.<br/>
Have you read that story, Johnny?</p><p>You know, I didn't think I would be this afraid of you, I see now that I always was. Still...I need you.<br/>
I'm so fucking scared.... When will you talk to me again? You always pipe up when I'm about to do something stupid. </p><p>Takemura is at my bedside, I want to reach out and touch him but I think of you, holding me back. I know you always hated him. Why does it feel like you're still here, Johnny? </p><p>...Dammit, V. </p><p>He speaks of securing my soul....</p><p>...Dammit, V. </p><p>Takemura says I'm going to die either way, come winter. Looks like It was all for nothing, Johnny.... But I can secure my soul and enter Mikoshi...live as code until they can safely put me in a new body.<br/>
What would you say to that, I wonder?<br/>
I'll admit it...I don't trust this....I really hoped I'd get you out of my head and put this all behind me. Start over and start making amends. Looks like there's no hope for that now, and I don't know if I buy what Arasaka is promising. But I can't help but trust Takemura. I know you tried to warn me about him but I really felt like he'd be a buoy in the murky sea that is the Arasaka family. Someone I could trust, someone other than you Johnny. I still think that. So when he told me that if he were in my shoes...he'd sign his life away...</p><p>...Damn you, V. </p><p>When he handed me the data pad...I signed it. Pressed my finger against the screen and signed my soul away in a matter of seconds. </p><p>...Everything we did....</p><p>I don't know who I am, Johnny. Feelin' started out vague and distant, like a headache just startin' to come on. But after removing the chip, the migraine came all at once. When I look inside me now I see darkness, I stare into the void and my hands shake....</p><p>...Everything I did for you...wanted for you....</p><p>I thought I was the master of my fate...the captain of an unbreakable soul...but I was wrong. I was reminded of something I had heard once...was it from you...?<br/>
That all that piss and vinegar, the bravery of youth and ignorance...is an easily broken thing. I thought I was immortal, untouchable, then I got my first taste of death. And I crumbled easily under its weight. Like chalk. </p><p>...I...</p><p>How do I come back from something like that? I'm not at the helm, Johnny. I never was. And I don't think any of us are. </p><p>...At least you taught me something, V. I should've thanked you when I had the chance....</p><p>I was more me when I was you....and now...I'm nothing but the vessel of my worst fears. Without you holding me together...I don't think I'll go on. There will be no V to save. Instead of being replaced by you, I will simply fade away. I might just cease to be...</p><p>...You taught me I'm the dumbest fucker there is. And dumber yet for not knowing it until I met you. </p><p>There's only darkness and fear on this vessel. And it's being steered against my will, just like always. </p><p>...I'm the fucking idiot that actually started to care about you. I fought for that stupid kid whose brain I invaded, she was full of piss and vinegar and yes there was fear but she still wouldn't break. I have to believe that kid existed, she was real.<br/>
God damn it, V. I can't believe I'm sayin this, but I was startin' to really feel for you. I would've gone to hell and back for you. And I told you as much. God dammit I told you I'd die for you! And you told me you'd die for me....I guess I didn't think...you'd fight that tooth and nail before you actually had to.</p><p>The next day they're ready for me, all I have to do is walk next door...and I...live. </p><p>...What are you doing, V. </p><p>Another funny thing, Johnny. They never gave me shoes or even slippers in this place. Hah, can you believe it? The money that goes into this place...it's probably unimaginable...and they have me walking around barefoot. It makes me laugh. I wonder if you'd laugh, or if you'd be unsurprised....<br/>
Honestly though, I don't think it would matter either way, I'd be cold here no matter what. But right now, walking out of this room for the first time in what seems like weeks....I don't feel a thing. </p><p>...V! Please tell me you're not doing this! Can you hear me through that thick skull of yours!? You really are fucking stubborn, you know that? </p><p>That guard again, same guard...don't they take breaks in this place? He was reciting a haiku the first time I met him. Wanna know what it was? </p><p>...V! Stop fucking walking you fucking idiot!!! I still care...you've made me an idiot too.... congratulations, I care.... Now please, don't do this, V. </p><p>Even in Kyoto—<br/>
hearing the cuckoo's cry—<br/>
I long for Kyoto.—<br/>
At first I didn't get it, but I think it's starting to make sense to me. Even before I had tried to find the meaning behind the words...I couldn't stop thinking about you after hearing it. Don't know how or why but I knew that guard recited that haiku specifically for us.<br/>
Anyway, I realized I had underestimated this entire situation...I looked at it all too literally.<br/>
Yes, the chip had overwritten most of my brain...it had caused so much damage that...there was so much less of me than in the beginning. So much damage that there was too little of me, there's not enough to come back. But you were a separate tumor on top of that. Not one and the same as I had thought, you weren't hardware, like that damned chip. Chip was one thing, Johnny, you were something else entirely. I never expected just how deeply you rooted yourself into me. And getting you torn out...how could I have predicted how badly that would hurt? </p><p>...What are you fucking doing, V! I can't watch you do this to yourself...not after everything...</p><p>The guard tells me his name but...I don't have room for any more names in my head right now.... It almost feels wrong to move yours aside to make room for another. So I let myself forget it...if I somehow remember it, then great, but...I'd rather yours be the only one in my head right now, maybe even until I'm woken up again. </p><p>...Everything I told you, even what I didn't tell you, you saw! You saw me, lived my memories, my pain, and after that you're- you're selling your soul! Willingly!? Letting them do to you what they did to me. Everything we've been fighting this entire time!? Does your life mean so little to yourself? Why, V? You meant something to me. </p><p>The guard tells me to remember my way home as I head into this prison. Home, Johnny. Home, Johnny. What if I've...made that impossible?</p><p>...You're letting your fear consume you!!! What happened, V? What happened!? Did I really spook you that bad? I really pushed you that close to the brink? </p><p>Just a little more. You all think I've stabbed you in the back. But this is the best course of action. If I can just use these people a little longer.... I know you think I'm being played by them, Johnny. That I'm not in control. That I'm their puppet. Maybe so...but I can just...stick it out a little longer....I might be able to come out of this...find the right time to break from them. Make everything right again. I haven't forgotten, not about you, not Jackie, not anyone. But sometimes...you have to sacrifice who you are...to help those around you, to help yourself. It'll be worth it in the end, I promise. </p><p>...V. Listen to me. I was scared too but this- Anything but this. Not again. Not you. Please, V. This can't possibly be what you want. We would never do this. What if the end never comes? </p><p>I lay on the operating table. For some reason I keep seeing our last moment together. You smiled...even though I told you I'd be helping Hanako Arasaka overthrow her brother. You smiled. Not at me, but at yourself. Inwardly. After I had joked about having inherited your stubbornness. Why did you smile? Because you realized you had changed me, not as a construct jammed in my brain, against my will, but as Johnny Silverhand? As a man who I spent what feels like a lifetime with? Even if it wasn't for the better...I changed to be closer to you, learned from you. I guess I never thought that change on such a small scale would bring you to smile. Didn't think it dramatic enough for Johnny Silverhand, he who took down an entire building just to prove a point. guess I was wrong. And then you...reached out for me but didn't give me a chance to grab hold...instead you looked at me sadly... squeezed my shoulder...and I didn't see you again. You...trusted me? Or had you forgiven me right then and there...knew what was going to happen before it happened? </p><p>...V....I'm screamin at you. But you're cold and distant now. Can barely see you. My voice felt weirdly close when I was with you. Like when I talked...I could always hear myself close by. Like you were an audio device, playing me back everytime I said anythin'. Now it's like....my voice isn't even coming from me, it's coming from somewhere so far off, it's trapped in a vacuum somewhere. Like I'm speaking into a space where sound doesn't carry at all. Is that true death? </p><p>The lights are still blinding. The doctors are all around me, getting ready to dissect my soul, remove it from my body and upload it to Mikoshi. They don't even look at me as they prepare to empty my body of its life. It feels so strongly, their avoidance, their lack of warmth. Loneliness is so much louder now without you, like when they tore you out of me it was with a thundering roar. A roar that echoes now in my mind and it's growing stronger and stronger each passing day, causing deafening vibrations in the empty spaces you left behind, shaking me to my core, numbing me to anything that isn't you. Maybe in that way I've taken you into me much deeper than the chip ever intended. It's not a personality construct rewriting my own. It's two souls tangling so complexly they will never be just two ever again.<br/>
Maybe after this, it'll finally be over, and I can start fixing everything. Johnny, just a little longer. I can make this right when I wake up...</p><p>Wake up, V.</p><p>Johnny. </p><p>V.</p><p>Johnny.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Mikoshi</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>I did it. I'm here. Why is it still so hard...?</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mikoshi.</p><p>It's not what you would expect. </p><p>It's empty here, but it's comfortable....</p><p>Like I'm floating in lukewarm water. The lack of any sensory stimulation can be terrifying....but if you give into it...time flows imperceptibly and it's almost peaceful. </p><p>I can see a door, amongst the blinding nothingness of my new world. Sometimes there's even a room to go with it. But usually it's just a door. </p><p>I try not to look at it. It's better to stare at the infinite empty. And forget, and be nothing, and be endless. <br/>But I can't help looking every now and then, becoming myself again and expecting a knock at the door. </p><p>Knock. </p><p>I barely register the sound, staring into the nothing but I feel panic rising and it's so sharp and suffocating I'm brought back and face the door. </p><p>Knock. </p><p>'Who- how....' I feel like running, but how can I here, I'm- I'm trapped and the knocking is getting louder. </p><p>Knock. </p><p>It's more like a booming bang now, I sense hands clutching at a face, clenching eyes and tears stinging. Before I start screaming I decide to rush forward and open the door. That face...my legs refuse to hold me, and I drop to my knees. </p><p>'Johnny...' I sob, looking up at his unimpressed face. </p><p>'So V, nice digs. Not how I left it but- we're very different people...aren't we.' He drawls, he sounds crisp and close, clear and disgusted. He looks the same, and he saunters into a physical room, walking past my figure pathetically kneeling on the ground. I watch him walk by and take a few crawling movements toward him. </p><p>'Johnny.... Please...tell me you won't leave again.' I beg. </p><p>Johnny turns to me, arms crossed and hips and head swinging with that same lazy cadence he never lost. Like he doesn't have any care in the world. But we both knew better, didn't we, Johnny? A weight like that, isn't easily concealed, it comes out in different ways. Your short temper, your impatience, how you hated caring about me. I knew you, stranger; and you were mine. </p><p>'You'd think so, wouldn't you.' Johny walks over to me, responding to words unsaid. He crouches to look me in the eyes, 'You know I can't make that promise, V.' he sounds bored. But hidden in his voice is sadness, why is he trying so hard to hide it? </p><p>'Why? Why not, Johnny?'</p><p>'You know why, V.'</p><p>I do know why, but I ask from the pathetic hope that maybe the answer will finally change. I clench my fists against my thighs as I kneel before my demon, 'Yes I loved you Johnny but I loved me more! Is that so evil!? Why do you torture me over choosing myself. Why can't you let it go!?' I'm scream. </p><p>'It's not me that can't let it go, V.' Johnny takes off his glasses, finally letting me see his eyes. He stares down at the floor, his eyes are grey and distant, 'I told you...you'd regret this. That you'd have to fight for your soul.'</p><p>I grimace, 'Well I did. I chose to save me.' slowly I pick myself up, 'We don't all wanna save the world Johnny. I was all the world I needed.'</p><p>Johnny scoffs at that, a bitter smile on his face, 'Keep telling yourself that. You and every single spineless thug in Nightcity. Too frightened to care about anything else but themselves.' </p><p>I reel at that, I resent it....my face twisting into grief and insult, 'Spineless? Look at where I am, Johnny? You think just anyone could have gotten themselves this far?' </p><p>'With enough disregard for life? Yes, anyone.' </p><p>'I treasure life. More than you, terrorist.' I spit at Johnny's feet as I shoot the insult at him.</p><p>Johnny looks away from, pacing farther away from the door. </p><p>'Why am I here, V?' Johnny asks, ignoring my jabs. </p><p>My eyes go wide in astonishment, the last thing I wanted to think. </p><p>My voice cracks, mouth suddenly dry as I swallow hard, 'Because I- I-' my fists fall limply to my sides, 'I needed to see you again.'</p><p>'Needed me to knock some sense into you one more time?' Johnny runs a hand through his stark black hair, chuckling bitterly, 'I can't save you this time, V. I told you as much.' </p><p>'You died a long time ago Johnny!' I spew hatefully, standing before him now, 'You were dead for a long long time Johnny, I was- I belonged here. You resent me for not wanting to give myself up for you?' </p><p>Johnny pinches the bridge of his nose, 'You're here aren't you!?' he screams right back, 'Did I stop you? No, I didn't. I just thought-' </p><p>Johnny groans, 'God damn it, V. You really gonna make me say it?' </p><p>I stand there, dumbstruck and devoid of words, staring at him with hate in my eyes. </p><p>Johnny's eyes soften against mine, not buckling underneath their seething heat. </p><p>'I thought- we cared about each other. That after everything...it was about...us.' Johnny swallows hard, his throat bobbing as he does so. He can't seem to bring himself to meet my eyes, either out of shame or bashfulness I couldn't pinpoint. </p><p>My jaw drops at his confession, he looks pained, one arm wrapped consolingly over himself, rubbing his shoulder absentmindedly. </p><p>This stings, this hurts more than outright being called a traitor. To see him like this. This isn't Johnny Silverhand. This is- someone I've genuinely let down. Despite all the hypocritical bullshit that got in between us...there was...something otherworldly that bound us together. Beyond science and reason...and I....</p><p>'I-I...' I stutter, eyes stinging and lost completely for words, 'I didn't...think you actually felt that way....'</p><p>Johnny's eyes harden slightly, staring at me from beneath his dark lashes, 'What did you think I meant? When I gave you those...' Johnny points at dog tags I didn't know I was wearing, 'You think I did that to disarm you?'</p><p>I- I....I must have...forgot....or didn't want to know. To remember. </p><p>Johnny smiles bitterly, scoffing inwardly, 'Guess I fried your brain worse than I meant to. You lost it, V. Lost it to fear.' Johnny takes a few tentative steps toward me, I stare up at him with glossy eyes, "I'm sorry, V. I couldn't do enough.' his strong hand lands on my shoulder, it's warm and comforting and oh so loud in contrast to the cold. He lingers there for a moment, his eyes darting around my face, then to the dog tags around my neck. His expression flashes in a tight grimace, 'This is it, V.' He breathes.</p><p>Before I can ask what he means, his eyes leave mine, and he walks out the door. </p><p>I crumple in on myself, the room falling away back to the suffocating white, my tears flowing in front of me, floating globules undulating and drifting off into infinity. All regret, all memories, I have to give in to the nothing. </p><p>Otherwise I'll go insane....</p><p>If I can't be two, I'll simply become nothing. </p><p>Whatever it takes, I'll see this through.</p>
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